There's a new Nintendo Direct conference at 9AM EST tomorrow announcing new Wii U games. I'm setting expectations somewhere around the level of "The RE Revelations port will be the centerpiece; plus the vague confirmation of a Mario or Zelda game eventually."

I really doubt that Nintendo will use a Direct to showcase a port of a handheld game that is also coming to other consoles.

When Nintendo did the Direct for Pokemon a few weeks ago, The creator of Pokemon retweeted it. Now Soraya Saga (wife of Tetsuya Takahashi, creator of Xenoblade) re-tweeted the Nintendo Direct announcement. She has only re-tweeted two ND announcements in the past: One of Iwata's Wii U unboxing and an ND that mentioned Monolith Soft's RPG.

Yeah, I was mostly kidding, but also having flashbacks to when (E3 I think?) NOA spent an inordinate amount of time showing off the Arkham City port. That said, I hope you're right, because I would pretty much die at the announcement of anything even remotely related to Xenoblade Chronicles.

I'm thinking it's too early to announce a Wii U Animal Crossing though, no? The 3DS one isn't even out in most of the world yet. Though I think they did mention the 3DS version being able to interact with the eventual Wii U game in some way.

I'm thinking it's too early to announce a Wii U Animal Crossing though, no? The 3DS one isn't even out in most of the world yet. Though I think they did mention the 3DS version being able to interact with the eventual Wii U game in some way.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf is currently the biggest selling game in Japan. Last time I checked anyway.
And the other day GameFly put it on their list of upcoming Wii U games.Link

Might mean nothing, but plenty of people would think this was big news.

Yeah, I was mostly kidding, but also having flashbacks to when (E3 I think?) NOA spent an inordinate amount of time showing off the Arkham City port. That said, I hope you're right, because I would pretty much die at the announcement of anything even remotely related to Xenoblade Chronicles.

I'm thinking it's too early to announce a Wii U Animal Crossing though, no? The 3DS one isn't even out in most of the world yet. Though I think they did mention the 3DS version being able to interact with the eventual Wii U game in some way.

Originally Posted by Joystiq
During the latest Nintendo Direct presentation, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revealed that Virtual Console will soon be launching for the Wii U. The Virtual Console will launch this spring, after a system update to the Wii U that will improve the speed of launching software. Another update is planned for the summer that will improve the speed of returning to the Wii U menu.

The Wii U Virtual Console will launch with a selection of NES and Super Nintendo titles, though Iwata noted that it will not launch with the entire library of titles already available on the Wii Virtual Console. The reason for this, said Iwata, is that Wii U Virtual Console games are being newly developed especially for Wii U and will feature the ability for players to save their progress and play directly on the GamePad. Furthermore, the Wii U Virtual Console will eventually include Gameboy Advance games. (What, no Virtual Boy?)

NES games will run from $5 to $6, while Super Nintendo games will run from $8 to $9. However, users who already own a particular NES or SNES game for the Wii Virtual Console will be able to pick up its Wii U counterpart for $1.00 or $1.50, respectively.

Welcome if expected news all around. That said, while it's nice to know they're working on improving the OS speed, it is so sadly hilariously Nintendo that A) this update is split into two parts, one for launching away from the menu and one for getting back to the menu, and B) this won't be completed until summer. Come on, guys.

Man, the pace of this is glacial. I would have thought they'd be ready to go day one with all the past virtual console stuff working, and then beginning to port GameCube and Wii games over from there. Now they're back to dribbling out NES and SNES games one by one all over again? Makes me not want to buy into the VC at all, cause the lasting value is so poor.

Anyway, my interest is piqued on the wind waker remake. I suppose they're gonna try and sell that for full price? I'd buy a Wii U today if they started putting out HD collections of past games like the PS3 has absolutely been nailing....this is like my favorite trend of the past few years. But it seems like they want to do it really piecemeal instead of throwing it all out there.

I can understand if people want to pay for extra functionality on Virtual Console, but I don't see why they can't just migrate the titles from the Wii menu. They can leave out save states and wiipad play. Wii mode is a pain in the ass.

Turn on Wii U, wait for it to load

hit Wii Mode

pick up Wiimote, press A

press A at Wii warning screen,

click on game you want to start

hit start on wii menu

wait for game to load, then press start again at splash screen

I know it could be worse, it could be PS3 with no Backwards compatibility and spotty compatibility for PS1 games, but it's so damned tedious.

Is it too much to hope that they'll add back in the dungeons that were cut for time in the original Wind Waker?

I'd sure hope so. The cel shading will scale to HD very well on its own, so Id rather they did that, than remake graphics that don't need remaking. Hopefully they can do something to make the sailing less tedious while they're at it.

I can understand if people want to pay for extra functionality on Virtual Console, but I don't see why they can't just migrate the titles from the Wii menu. They can leave out save states and wiipad play. Wii mode is a pain in the ass.

Turn on Wii U, wait for it to load

hit Wii Mode

pick up Wiimote, press A

press A at Wii warning screen,

click on game you want to start

hit start on wii menu

wait for game to load, then press start again at splash screen

I know it could be worse, it could be PS3 with no Backwards compatibility and spotty compatibility for PS1 games, but it's so damned tedious.

The original Wii supported save states when you quit out of the game....so am I understanding it right that the Wii U doesn't offer the same support in Wii mode? Or are they talking about upgrading the save states so that you can save/load at will?

SMT vs Fire Emblem
yoshi game in epic yarn style
Wind waker remake
new mario galaxy
new mario kart
new zelda
new smash bros
new Xenoblade, or something that looks quite like it from monolith

Virtual Console games will be $1 or $1.5 if you already own them on wii

some kind of trial?? system for 6 virtual console NES games at 30 cents apiece. Not sure how this works exactly.

Excited for several of these, especially the new Yoshi game. I bought Kirby's Epic Yarn because I loved the style, but I hated the game play. If the gameplay on this is similar to Mario platformers, then it's an instant buy for me. Can't wait to see exploding yarn antics in HD!

I also love the Wind Waker style, and I bet it'll also look amazing in HD. I'll likely buy that along with the new Galaxy, Kart, and Zelda games. Lots to look forward to, seems so far away though.

I've heard the 3DS game was great, but I have little interest in a portable RE, so this is great news by me. It's an especially pleasant surprise to see Wii U included in on this. I imagine the other versions will need significant tweaking, but thanks to the touchscreen the Wii U version really should be just a giant HD version of the original.

I'm with you on this. RE is meant to be played on a console, preferably an immersive big screen. I wonder if either the Wii U or Xbox versions will use some kind of "point and shoot" technology, ala RE4. I'll probably buy it anyway, but this would make it more fun for me.

The original Wii supported save states when you quit out of the game....so am I understanding it right that the Wii U doesn't offer the same support in Wii mode? Or are they talking about upgrading the save states so that you can save/load at will?

On 3DS you can create one Save State and Load it at will. They're bringing that functionality to Wii U. 3DS also saves your place if you quit the game, in a separate state.

Is it too much to hope that they'll add back in the dungeons that were cut for time in the original Wind Waker?

This is a welcome bit of news! I wouldn't count on extra dungeons, they didn't call anything out in the announcement. Knowing Ninty... I doubt they do anything big here, maybe add in a couple extra side quests that were cut or shorten the ending fetch quest (which would be OK by me).

and screenshots are looking good - not sure about the whole Twilight Princess "Vaseline Filter" personally:

The environment looks stunning but the characters seem like they were pasted in from GC but with better rendering, they lack a bit of the texture and depth when you see them against the new backgrounds.

I like it and it's a great act of service to their fans. Still not enough to get me to buy a Wii U, but it's better than the VC port I honestly expected we'd get- which might indicate that GC VC is still a couple years away. I almost wish they would had gone with the same cel-shading and added just straight up HD textures and dynamic lighting... something worries me that the charm of the original will get lost in the flashy HD conversion. I'll hold judgement, once I see it in 60FPS I might eat my words. Off TV play is welcome, let's hope that trend continues.

As to the rest of the announcements... it's really more of the of the current Nintendo retread-and-re-release strategy, there's a lot of "We'll have something new, someday! Until then, enjoy the same games all over again!"; it echoes the 3DS a lot to me, which hasn't been bad, but certainly not burning up the sales charts like the hype machine had us all believing it would.

Out of all of the announcements (mind you I'm only mid-way through the show, still catching up), we basically have Yoshi's Epic Yarn, Smash Bros. U, Mario Unknown, and Mario Kart U- all will be great games, sure, but I can play the same games on a Wii I already own, or even on a WiiU without having to spend $59.99 a pop.

I'm just not as excited as I hoped. Except for the "Now in HD!!!! And one person has an extra screen!", it's basically Wii catalog pt 2. It's not even like the games here are coming out soon, just announcements and more details at E3... sorta like last year's E3 when Pikmin 3, W101 and Game & Wario were shown. Those games still haven't materialized.

It's a good start ,certainly a much needed spark of life. But I'm already calling it: Xenoblade 2 won't make it to the US for years...

[EDIT 2]
I've seen everything now, and it's a good showing. Still a LOT of wait and see, and there's nothing really surprising in the announcements (who didn't think we'd get a new Mario, Smash Bros and Zelda?). Really Surprised about Yoshi... that could literally be a Wii/WiiU dual launch if they wanted to, it's obviously Kirby's game engine. They won't since they need the games for U, but it's possible. Give me some news on Retro doing either a Metroid or DK and I might get back on the hype wagon.

Overall, I'm happy with everything in the announcement. Not disappointed, but not exactly jumping for joy. Pretty happy though.

I can wait for good games.

Just downloaded CAVE so I'm going to give that a whirl. Then on to Aliens: Colonial Marines when that comes out.
I still have to completely finish ZombiU and Trine 2. I've barely scratched the surface on the former.

Meanwhile, my daughter is eagerly awaiting an Animal Crossing 3DS announcement.
A bonus would be having it eventually show up on the Wii U.

I still dig older games but don't have the time or the patience to struggle with them like you had to back then. With save states you still need to beat the game, just 99% of the downtime and repetition is eliminated. Id rather they'd just re-engineer the games with modern sensibilities, but in place of that, save states can at least get you through something like r-type or castlevania 3 in a matter of hours, instead of days/weeks of frustration. I guess having to dig through menus is better than not having the ability at all, but its just another form of downtime and aggravation that gets in the way.

Xenoblade 2 looks hot, hot, hot! Hopefully Monolith is now in the groove like they were with Xenosaga. Xenosaga took forever to come out, but then they put out a scond and third with only the standard 2-3 year gap. Since we were already two years late on getting Xenoblade, that could put Xenoblade 2 at a reasonable release of the end of this year, mid next year.

I had class this morning and just got to check out the news. Holy Crap! I didn't see all this coming. A lot of awesome news. Now lets hope NOA learned their lesson and we get Monolith Soft's game before 2020. Xenoblade Chronicles was one of my favorite games of last/this gen.

It really makes me wonder what took Nintendo so long to show this stuff off.

Goddamn that Monolith game looks amazing. Given what they did on the Wii with XC's amazing environments, I had high hopes for what they could do with HD hardware and it seems like they've already exceeded them. Absolutely cannot wait for that. The early Wind Waker screens also look even better than expected. But frankly, I thought that game already looked damn good even at 480p. Safe to bank on a Thanksgiving 2013 release for that one, and the next "real" Zelda a year later, you think?

Overall I'd call the presentation a success, although SMT x Fire Emblem was the only real, 100% out of left field surprise (Yoshi was technically leaked in those Wii U debug menu shots around launch). I mean, obviously, we knew Mario, Zelda, Kart, and Smash Bros were coming at some point, what I want to hear about is their B-tier franchises like Starfox, Metroid, and F-Zero (or god forbid a new IP). And more specifically, whatever it is they've got Retro working on...